June 6 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil
exporter, is accelerating by a decade plans to boost production
capacity at its Manifa oil field development to pump the heavy
crude needed to feed three planned refineries.

The state oil producer of Saudi Arabia plans to raise
production capacity at Manifa, located in shallow water in the
Persian Gulf, to its maximum level of 900,000 barrels a day by
2014, Aramco said today in its 2010 annual review. The target
date for the field is 10 years ahead of the schedule laid out in
its annual report last year.

Saudi Arabia, holder of the world’s largest oil reserves,
will invest $125 billion on oil and gas output and downstream
projects such as refineries over the next five years, Oil
Minister Ali Al-Naimi said in Poland last week. The country is
adding refining capacity to meet domestic demand and boosting
petrochemical output to create jobs and diversify exports.

Dependent on oil for 85 percent of its revenue, the kingdom
is embarking on two new petrochemical facilities at the
industrial city of Jubail on the state’s Persian Gulf coast.
Aramco is developing a a 400,000 barrel-a-day combined refinery
and petrochemical facility with Total SA and is working on plans
for a plant with Dow Chemical Co.

Maintain Production Capacity

Additional production from Manifa will help maintain
Aramco’s maximum sustainable oil production capacity at 12
million barrels a day, Aramco said in the review posted on its
website today. Last year, Aramco added 1.7 million barrels a day
of output capacity after completing expansion projects at the
Khurais and Khursaniyah fields, it said.

At Manifa, the world’s fifth-largest oil field, Aramco is
building 41 kilometers (25 miles) of causeway to connect 27 man-made islands built to support drilling rigs to crude and gas
processing facilities on the mainland. The field is set to have
the capacity to pump Arabian Heavy crude at a rate of 500,000
barrels a day by 2013 before ramping up to full capacity a year
later, the company said.

Aramco had initially planned to bring the additional
capacity at Manifa online by this year before the global
financial crisis and worst recession since World War II started
in 2008, causing oil demand to slump and oil prices to plunge
from their high in July that year.

Safaniya Field

Aramco is also upgrading facilities at Safaniya, the
world’s largest offshore oil field, to maintain Arab Heavy crude
production capacity, the company said.

The crude will help supply planned refineries at Jubail on
the Persian Gulf coast, Yanbu on the Red Sea and Jazan in the
country’s southwest. The plants will help meet demand for
gasoline and other products in Saudi Arabia, and Aramco aims to
integrate fuel processing with petrochemicals.

The Jazan refinery will have a capacity to process 400,000
barrels a day of the kingdom’s medium and heavy grade crudes and
is set to be completed in 2017, Aramco said in the report today.
That’s later than the 2015 completion date that Khalid Al-Buainain, Aramco’s senior vice president for downstream, set for
the refinery during a speech in Houston on March 8.

China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec,
agreed in March to join in Aramco’s Red Sea Refining Co. project
to build a 400,000 barrel-a-day heavy crude processing plant at
Yanbu. The Aramco-Total plant in Jubail is set for completion in
2013, with the Yanbu refinery following in 2014, Al-Buainain
said in the Houston speech.

Aramco and Dow Chemical conducted engineering and design
studies for their planned joint venture chemical plant, Aramco
said in the review today. Investment in the venture with Dow
“is approaching $20 billion,” Chief Executive Officer Khalid
Al-Falih said in Dubai Dec. 8. Another $6 billion to $8 billion
is earmarked for investment in an expansion of the Rabigh
Refining and Petrochemicals Co. venture, known as Petro Rabigh,
he said. Sumitomo Chemical Co. is Aramco’s partner at Rabigh.